Thursday, January 06, 2005

More on our Fifth Column press

After I forwarded him Melanie Phillips' article (see my post, below), a friend of mine circulated the following great email to his email list, and gave me permission to print it here in its entirety:

The Yahoo opening page yesterday carried its customary list of the day's news stories. Yahoo does this by taking stories from the wire services, including the AP, "AFP," and Reuter. This selection of wire services, then, become the filters through which the "news" is presented. The skew of these sources, however, is sickening - and alarming - because these are actually highly partisan sources of news that do not accept that we're involved in a world-wide terror war. These wire services mock the very notion of it, place "war" in quotes when referring to it, and act as de facto defenders of militant Islam.
Yesterday, in a Reuter wire service story displayed on Yahoo, the "journalist" (I can use quotes too) was discussing al Qaeda, and went on to say something that chilled me to the bone - in referring to the US's actions abroad, the writer said this: "in what the [US] government refers to as the 'war on terror. . . .' " (Quotes in original.) In other words, according to Reuter - by far the worst of the lot - there really is no war on terror. It's just government labelling that says so - not an objective truth. "AFP"? Who knows that AFP is actually "Agence France-Presse," the French government-subsidized wire service from Paris? Not surprisingly, "AFP" mirrors Reuter's bias - one that is so profound as to be absurd in its excess.
Were we to have had to deal with this ilk in our battle against Hitler, Tojo and Mussolini, the following are headlines that we might have expected to see:
1. Hitler and his re-occupation of the Ruhr Valley in 1934, in violation of the Versailles Treaty. Reuter: "The British government today alleged that German Chancellor Adolf Hitler engaged in a 'hostile military action' in the Ruhr Valley. The government further claims, without apparent evidence, that Hitler's larger European goals 'may be hostile.'"
2. Mussolini and his 1938 pact with Hitler. AFP: "In order to enhance their mutual security, which they suggest is under threat due to hostile British actions on the high seas, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler and Italian President Benito Mussolini today agreed to a mutual defense treaty. The British government claims, without apparent evidence, that Hitler's larger European goals 'appear to be unnecessarily aggressive and counter to our own peaceful motives.'"
3. Tojo's and Imperial Japan's 1935 invasion of China: "Citing mainland Chinese political instability, the Japanese government today appeared poised to act on its apparently well-founded fear that the instability could spread to Korea and beyond, perhaps to Japan itself. In response, the American government repeated its old allegation that Imperial Japan appears to be poised for an invasion of the mainland and is a 'threat to world peace.'"
4. French surrender to the Nazis in 1940, and creation of the puppet Vichy state: "Citing the ease with which northern France adjusted to the efficiencies of German rule, southern France agreed to creation of a cooperative state whose capital would be Vichy. The United States and Britain offended both the French and German governments with their response that 'surrender' cannot be recast as cooperation. Asked to comment, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler appeared to be critical of Prime Minister Churchill's close relationship with President Roosevelt."
Friends - this is exactly how the news is today presented, and if it had been presented this way in the thirties and forties, we'd have lost the will to fight - with the press willingly abetting our enemies:
"This systematic abuse by the media is having a devastating impact in weakening the ability of the west to defend itself against the unprecedented mortal threat that it faces from the Islamic jihad. People cannot and will not fight if they don’t understand the nature or gravity of the threat that they face, so much so that they vilify their own leaders while sanitizing those who would harm them."
For more examination of this critical point, read the following lucid examination of the many ties between Hussein, terror and WMD, and how the media routinely mocks these links. Don't let the media lose our war! Circulate this widely! When you see "Reuter" or "AP", think "Tokyo Rose."

I couldn't say it better myself, and am just grateful that he said it so well.